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converting bread machine recipes to bake in the oven

converting bread machine recipes to bake in the oven

I have a bread machine, but the paddle is struggling so I figure it's not going to be long until it's useless. I've never liked actually baking in the machine anyway, because of the big holes a paddle makes. However, I have a bunch of recipes for use in the bread machine that I'd like to use. How long should I bake bread in the oven, and at what temperature if using a recipe for a bread machine?thanks for the help!

Try baking at around 350-375 degrees for around 40 minutes. All ovens are different so you may or may not have to adjust the time. If you have an instant read thermometer and you are baking pan loaves, it should read 190 degrees or so in the middle of the loaf. Artisan bread should read around 205 degrees. Hope this helps you.

Just adding on a bit to Wayne's comment, leaner doughs might be baked at a higher temperature, around 400 or so. The richer the dough (such as having lots of butter or eggs, sugar), the easier it will burn, so 350 degrees should be sufficient.

if there are add-ins (dried fruits, nuts, etc), you might want to incorporate them not at the mixing/first rise stage, but at the shaping-proofing stage. Adding extras too early might make it harder for dough to rise, and also might absorb too much moisture from the dough.

Rustic European Breads from Your Bread Machine by Eckhardt and Butts (ISBN 0385477775) is out of print but available used. It discusses in detail how to make dough in the bread machine and then shape and bake the loaf by hand. It also provides many recipes.

Personally I make the dough per the original instructions on Dough cycle, then shape, proof, and bake it as recommended for whatever reasonably close recipe I can find in RLB's The Bread Bible. I seldom have a failure.

I have a recipe that I really love but my girlfriend, who gave me the recipe uses, a bread machine, and I do not have a bread machine. The recipe uses about as much whole wheat flour as it does bread flour, plus quite a bit of honey, milk and eggs. I have no way of knowing at what temperature her machine operates at, nor the baking time she uses - or if it is even variable on her machine. I had to experiment a bit but I found out that the best combination of time/temperature was 325 deg F (160C) for an hour. This does tend to give a bit of a heartier crust, but I soften it by brushing the tops of the loaves with clarified butter immediately upon placing them on the racks to cool. I also place the oven racks in the lower third of the oven which prevents the tops from burning and not under cooking the inside of the breads as well.

For regular white breads, I have found that a baking temperature of 375 to 400 deg F (190 to 205C) for 25 minutes ( at 400 deg for recipes without eggs, honey and milk) to 45 minutes at 375 deg for recipes with honey, eggs and milk usually works out. Checking the internal temperature is a good idea, but I recently had the demise of my thermometer and I now check for proper baking by taking a loaf out, taking the loaf out of the pan, and looking at the brownness and verify that tapping the bottom gives a hollow sound when tapped with a fingernail. If I do not see/hear what I want, I return the loaf to the pan, put it back in the oven and recheck at 5 to 7 minutes until I see/hear what I want.

Maybe this is not the best solution available, but I have had good results by this method. I haven't lost a loaf yet with this. Once I get three good batches at a particular time and temperature, I consider my recipe to be validated and, so far, I have not been disappointed. Remember that not all ovens are the same - having longer or shorter variation in temperature from oven burner off, to off, to relight, meaning quite a difference in how well an oven regulates its internal temperature.

This can vary to +35F to burner off and as much as -35F to burner relight, at a particular setting, on some ovens. Remember that the temperature one sets on their oven is a "nominal average" temperature. I have found out that there is not really a "one-size-fits-all" solution here. Your mileage may vary.

BTW: Here is my friend's bread machine recipe:

Brenda's Honey Whole Wheat Bread:

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup of water

2/3 cup of milk

1/3 cup of wild honey

1-1/2 tbsp of butter, softened

1 egg

Dry Ingredients

2 cups of bread flour

2 cups of whole wheat flour

2-1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp + 2 tsp gluten

1 scant tbsp of bread machine yeast.

This will work perfectly in a bread machine as is. However, I double the recipe, subtract 1/2 cup of the whole wheat flour and replace it with flaxseed meal. I do the dry ingredients separately from the wet, with the exception of adding regular, quick acting yeast to the wet, well whisked together, and allowing the yeast to proof prior to adding the wet to the dry ingredients.

I bake this at 325F for an hour with the racks at the lower 1/3 position.

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